WWE SummerSlam 1990 (1990)

Summerslam 1990 had some marvellous names on the card, plus some good story angles. The P.P.V had the potential to be a highly memorable one. Sadly, this wasn't the case in my opinion. The matches of The Rockers vs Power and Glory was too one-sided and also too predictable. Shawn Michaels had a legitimate leg injury so I can understand why he couldn't participate in the tag team match. Even so, it was disappointing. The Sapphire/ Queen Sherri match didn't even bloody happen so it was a waste of time in planning it! They had a bit of heat with their angle and I'll bet the fans were looking forward to it. The match of Hacksaw Jim Duggan and Volkoff against The Orient Express was terrible from beginning to end. Tito Santana had become a midcarder at this stage of his career when he took on The Warlord but it was a decent match anyway. Jake Roberts vs Bad News Brown was ok and Big Boss Man as the guest referee was a good idea. Macho King and Dusty Rhodes were still in the middle of their feud when they had their dreadful match at Summerslam. Rhodes was losing momentum by now and he didn't stay for much longer with the WWE. Mr. Perfect defended his I.C title against newcomer Texas Tornado after Brutus "the Barber" Beefcake had to withdraw. The resulting match was ok but too short. Demolition vs The Hart Foundation in a 2 out of 3 falls match for the tag team titles is undoubtedly the best one on the card. There were numerous twists and turns and I enjoyed it. The new member being Crush, meant that Ax was being fazed out due to an injury. Legion of Doom certainly added some spice to this title match and should have been included on the Summerslam card. The Hart Foundation proved they are one of the leading teams in wrestling history and deserved another title reign. Now for the double main event: Hulk Hogan had been absent from the company for a short time but he still had a good angle with the superheavyweight that was Earthquake. In Hogan's corner was Big Boss Man and with Earthquake was Canadian strong man, Dino Bravo. I rate the match as being very good. It was bound to be a bit more leisurely paced but it worked up about good head of steam. The Ultimate Warrior defended his heavyweight title against Ravishing Rick Rude inside a steel cage. It was the first time this kind of match had been held at a Summerslam event and it is great. The Warrior and Rude had re-ignited their angle from the previous year. According to various sources, Rude left the company in disgust after discovering how much The Warrior was paid for the cage match. That was quite a loss as Ravishing Rick Rude is a fine worker. Vince McMahon and "Rowdy" Roddy Piper provided some very good commentary. Some very good matches but also some very poor ones.

Here are the matches...Rockers v Power and Glory: This turned into a handicap match as repackaged jobbers to the stars Hercules and Paul Roma hit Shawn Michaels in his already injured leg on ambush with the chain. Marty Jannetty makes a valiant effort before succumbing to the innovative Power Plex and pin. Michaels leaves the arena on a stretcher, selling his leg injury like a wild man.4/10 Texas Tornado v Mr Perfect for the Intercontinental title: Mr Perfect takes a few bumps before losing to the claw and Tornado Punch for an upset pin-fall. It was a nice WWF moment but it's sad to see Perfect lose without putting in the work-rate for a man of his potential.5/10 Sapphire v 'Sensational' Sherri: Sapphire loses the match by forfeit because she doesn't make it to the ring. The WWF do a reasonable job at making it look legitimate.0/10 Tito Santana v Warlord: Tito jobbed to one Powers of Pain at Wrestlemania, he may as well job to the other at Summerslam and he doesn't do a bad job of it. Tito tries for a monkey-flip but Warlord holds on to turnbuckles finishing Tito off with the power-slam and pin.4/10 Hart Foundation v Demolition for the tag team titles in a 2-3 falls match: Demolition incorporated a new member called Crush to share the work load because Ax wasn't well and started a confusion angle (the only people confused where the officials as far as I was concerned) where Harts didn't know which two of the three they were getting. Interesting that Crush refer to Legion of Doom as 'second rate impostors' as Legion of Doom were the inspiration behind Demoliton. Crush and Smash start the match and get the first pin on Bret making it 1-0 to Demolition. The Foundation would soon come back after a terrible decision by Crush to take out the ref rather than Bret Hart who was pinning Smash - deliberate or rookie mistake? Shortly after the disqualification decision on Demolition (making it 1-1), Ax comes to the ring and hides under the apron and from there Smash switches sides so a fresh Ax comes into play. Legion of Doom come to the ring shortly after to serve justice to Demolition. Crush gets schoolboy pinned after taking a ringside slingshot from Niedhart making it 2-1 to The Hart Foundation to become new tag team champions. What I once considered a classic isn't as amazing in retrospect because The Foundation weren't fighting the original members.7/10 Jake 'The Snake' Roberts v Bad News Brown - Big Boss Man as special referee: Absolutely pitiful match as Bad News Brown gets disqualified for hitting Jake a second time in the stomach with a chair. This effort would be Bad News Brown's last match on PPV.2/10 'Hacksaw' Jim Duggan and Nikolai Volkoff v Orient Express: It is very weird to see Nikolai Volkoff as a face but even more weird seeing him sing 'America the Beautiful' badly with Duggan before the match. The Orient Express get murdered by Duggan and Volkoff which ends in Duggan's 3 point stance clothesline and rare clean pin.3/10 Dusty Rhodes v 'Machoking' Randy Savage: The only point to the match was to show where Sapphire ended up - bought out by Ted Dibiase. The empty smile on Sapphire's face seemed very effective though that may be because Sapphire in real life was besotted with Dusty and knew the plot would draw her away from him. Dibiase's acts got poor Dusty distracted, ambushed and pinned after use of Sherri's loaded purse within a very short space of time. Rhodes screaming for Sapphire after the match as she went off in Dibiase's limousine was quite an image. If Rhodes had his way, Sapphire would have been a prostitute but WWF thought it unsuitable. If the WWF did go with Dusty's idea it would have made this plot angle so much more darker.2/10 Hulk Hogan v Earthquake: I know there was build-up to this match but it certainly didn't deserve main event status. Were the WWF that worried if Hogan didn't main event their PPVs he would be forgotten about or was it Hogan's ego taking control at this point? The Hulkamania thing became stale from here as we enter another 'clash of the titans' type match featuring the typical Hogan can't slam big guy the first time but does the second time type thing. The difference between this match and other Hogan matches is that Earthquake loses by count-out after getting slammed on a table which is an awful booking decision. Nobody really gained anything from this result.4/10Ultimate Warrior v 'Ravashing' Rick Rude for the World title in a steel cage: You can tell Rude was on the way out here because he referred to the crowd as 'Pennsylvanian Pissants' which caused a genuine stir. This match had shades of their previous encounter at the last Summerslam and was quite brutal as both were throwing each other into the cage from the start. I wasn't convinced that Rude would win the match after he went to the top of the cage following the 'Rude Awakening' neck breaker. He didn't look like he wanted to win, even missing an opportunity of going through the door while Warrior was tangling with Heenan. This would be Rude's last PPV match with the WWF. 6/10 Overall, I think the most disheartening realisation of Summerslam 1990 was that a lot of wrestlers at this point were on the way down, way out or underutilised and we would see the slow WWF career deaths of Dusty Rhodes and Demolition from this point on. Also I didn't realise how awful Roddy Piper was on commentary at this point. I believe he was a 'Jesse Ventura replacement experiment' but it ended with bad results - back to the drawing board, Piper.

First ever event i watched thought it was real looking back its still a fantastic event the first match was excellent a real underdog fight with a realistic ending Perfect losing was a waste of one of the best characters ever he should of kept the title for a long time Warlord could have fought barbarian in a tag match with heenan and slick. The harts match could be the greatest tag match I've ever seen. i cannot understand why l.o.d where not used and even though hogan earthquake was good everyone wanted a hogan warrior rematch. Why bother wasting peoples time with bad news vs jake it was terrible and what has poor tito done to vince to be jobbed every two minutes

This one has always been a sentimental favorite of mine. I won a VHS copy of it in a newspaper competition about 8 years ago, and I still watch it today, it's great fun.It's like a peek into another world-Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior are on top of the WWF, and probably two of their more interesting , if not brilliant, outings are here. Vince McMahon and Roddy Piper are hamming it up on commentary, and virtually everything that was great about wrestling between 1988-92 is here-a great Hart Foundation bout, prime Curt Hennig stuff, The Rockers, the underrated Brother Love sketches and plenty more. Not totally great, but really fun stuff all round.